1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a knife roller used in an appliance for the precomminution of frozen material, such as frozen meat products.
2. Description of Prior Art
Knife rollers are known for their use in flakers or other appliances to precomminute frozen blocks of material, such as frozen meat products, without thawing or defrosting. These appliances prepare the material for further processing into smaller pieces by a mincer or similar appliance. Knife rollers are constructed with a roller member on which one or more cutting members are arranged. The roller member is rotatably mounted, horizontally, at the bottom of a funnel which receives a frozen block of material and directs it into engagement with the cutting members of the roller. As the roller member rotates, each cutting member peels from the frozen block a strip of material which falls into a container beneath the knife roller.
German Offenlegungsschrift No. 2,451,313 discloses such an appliance for the precomminution of frozen material. This device employs a knife roller with cutting members having a shearing knife and two precutters that form a U-shaped main knife or bow knife. As the knife roller rotates, the precutters separate strips of material from a frozen block of meat, which are then severed by the shearing knife. The shearing knife, which is spaced a radial distance from the roller surface, together with the precutters, which extend radially outward from the roller surface, define a passageway through which the frozen strips of material travel during the cutting process.
The cutting members are distributed uniformly around the circumference of a roller member and extend along its entire axial length. Alternatively, the cutting members extend only a short axial length of the roller member. In this arrangement, the cutting paths of adjacent shearing knives partially overlap one another so that the knife roller is able to cut material from the frozen block along the entire axial length of the roller member.
A problem with the knife roller described in German Offenlegungsschrift No. 2,451,313 is that, to provide a high cutting capacity, the cutting members must be equipped with long shearing knives for cutting wide strips of material from the frozen block. However, because the peeled strips of material removed by these cutting members are relatively large, further processing is made more difficult.